Pretty smart for SpaceX though. They’re turning an asset they made for a money-pit (Grok) into probably a major source of revenue ahead of their IPO.

It was pretty obvious to me that the merger was a way of quietly shutting xAI down in a way that keeps investors happy. With it also being used as a vehicle to offload the Twitter debt to the public, he certainly has good accountants.

Plot twist but makes perfect sense for both companies.

Anthropic gets the compute they so desperately need to keep growing. Elon rents out compute that xAI couldn't make use of due to little demand for Grok. SpaceX gets revenue on the books for IPO.

PS. I want to translate this part:

  We’re very intentional about where we’ll add capacity—partnering with democratic countries whose legal and regulatory frameworks support investments of this scale

  We're putting profits above anything else. Yes, Elon is a far right guy who supported Trump, a president who isn't very democratic, but we're just really desperate for more money. We're also trying to make you forget that xAI is funded by Middle East non-democratic governments. Heck, we'll even buy compute from China if we can sell Anthropic models there.

I'm just relieved to read that it isn't in fact...in space.

Illegal is a strong term here. While the wiki link you included indicates there might be some permitting nuances, I've seen nothing claiming the power is "illegal."

So I was just Googling this, and apparently most datacenters don't pay any state tax on revenue generated by said datacenter? Huge loophole if true, no wonder capital investment in datacenters is so high. [0]

[0] https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/regulations/how-are-data...

I have never come close to my weekly limit, but have hit my hourly limit frequently.

For me personally, I have the basic Claude Code subscription that I use to rewind on some evenings or on weekend, to code a bit for 1-2 hours. I have like 3-5 session with it every week.

The 5h windows are frustrating because I can go through them quickly if I have a more complex task. I haven't yet met the weekly limit. I'd say there are many cases similar to mine.

Exactly, the weekly limits are the real limiting factor. If you really push it, you can easily hit the weekly $200/mo Max limit in a day.

I've found with opus 4.6 which im still stubbornly using i can burn about 10% of the weekly within a 5 hour window with my workflow.

Mentally i think about the weekly usage in terms of usage per day so about 14% per day which results in me not using that much early in the week so i can kinda "burn freely" later on. which leads me to a spot where usually on the final two days im sorta thinking about how can i expend that usage ive "saved".

the 5 hour windows make this harder, sometimes the final day of the week im trying to get that 10% in every 5 hour window of my waking hours and i HATE that, i wanna work when i am most productive, not around some ridiculous window of time, i dont wanna think "I am gonna be utilizing claude the most around 11am so i should send a dumb message to haiku to get my 5 hour window started at 7:30am so i can have it roll over at 12:30."

So im happy about this change sure. But it is 100% them creating a problem and pretending having some relief from that problem is them doing their users a favor. I understand they are doing it to lower peak hours usage and all that, I still despise it.

Who cares about rate limits if they serve your prompt using dumbed down model.

> Looks like Elon's finally giving up on XAI and just selling the compute

I don't think that's certain yet, but I do think that the open-source models like Gemma and Qwen are getting so good so fast that even Anthropic has real risk around the long-term value of their models and tooling.

Basically, if I'm Anthropic or xAI, I try to get revenue whenever and wherever possible and see what sticks. There's no value in playing for monopolistic control when everything is so volatile.

I don't know if it relates to the same data centers, but this also comes hours after several still recent Grok models were deprecated at short notice. Grok 4.1 Fast is the cheapest way to do research on X (cheaper than the X API!) and it's gone on May 15: https://docs.x.ai/developers/models - freeing up compute to sell?

The details are secret. It very well could be wasted GPU time but Anthropic could have made a killer offering as well.

I'm just speculating, but a particularly killer offering Elon wouldnt be able to refuse would be if Anthropic agreed to give them some training data / technology.

Probably a good idea in all honesty. xAI is a deeply unserious lab

No I don't ever give up. I would have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

-Elon

https://x.com/XFreeze/status/2012390928221094335

Or he just got leverage on a competitor

Anthropic needs any compute they can get. So if Elon wants to build orbital data centers Anthropic would be happy to run models on it. There isn't really any doubt Elon can build orbital data centers the question is if they are economical compared to earth based.

Ehh, I think they are just "kissing the ring". This was part of the agreement for the terrestrial datacenter access, pretend like the space orbital compute is more than the boondoggle that it clearly is.

I want to be clear, I do think that one day something like that will exist, I just don't think it's anywhere close to being a reality, much like FSD.

Also it costs them, almost [0], nothing to say it and then later come up with some reason why they are no longer interested.

[0] Maybe a little bit of respect

most of the big tech ceos have mentioned this.

I don't think space compute is going to work out, but I would certainly say "yes happy to buy space compute from you in the future if you offer it at a good price"

If it happens it happens, if not, it doesn't.

> or posting this sentence was part of the deal to get the compute

All it says is expressed interest.

That's like asking a casual how are you...

It’s weird to not take this seriously. It’s obvious it’s serious and they’re pursuing it.

I think so, but that's also really great because I frequently run into the five hour caps, but very rarely use my entire weekly allotment. There are lots of situations where I do things like write the plan for all the work that has to get done, and then set a reminder to execute the plan after I get home, when I'm done making dinner (because e.g. my five hour cap ends at 6pm). Higher caps for the five hour period is a lot more convenient.

Some get the reset, some don't it seems :(

Building datacenters plays to his strengths. It's a good partnership if he can stomach it.

Source on this?

For my hobbyist purposes Deepseek v4 Flash has replaced Claude Code because I was also sick of hitting 5 hour limits with Claude. Right now, the only thing I miss from Claude is multi-modal image support. I can work around no image support since I can use v4 Flash all day and spend around $1. I am aware Deepseek is currently discounting their API at 75% off so I may try out another provider once the discount is gone at the end of the month.

At this point if feels like if you properly scope your work open weight LLMs are adequate.

One of the reasons I refuse to use xAI’s models is because of the outsized negative environmental impacts of the methane gas turbines.

Now I have to avoid Claude too.

Why?

> SpaceX is extremely uniquely positioned to crush the rest of the world combined in order to orbital data centers

Sure, as long as your data center is 3x4m - size of a Starlink satellite (think Spinal Tap Stone Henge) . Anything bigger than that (i.e. actual data center sized) is going to require some assembly.

I've heard TeslaBot is good at folding shirts, and serving drinks (at least while teleoperated) - perhaps it can help?

I struggle to understand how orbital data centers can make sense. Is it mainly for continuous solar energy? Surely this can't be enough to offset the costs of launching?

The first is impossible and the second isn't happening and won't happen.

the leader of building earth-based datacenters lol

what are we even talking about

Not for me. 2 Claude Max 20x accounts here both at high usage on weekly allotments.

Exactly.

Today they say this, then tomorrow they'll silently reduce limits and argue with anyone who calls them on it.

What's going to be the hit on our atmosphere when the data centers re enter? I guess it won't matter as the AI will replace the humans by then for the GDP and tax base.

CEO that accelerated eletric car industry by 10 years

CEO that accelerated space industry by 10+ years

CEO that accelerated HCI industry by 10 years

I doubt it'll ever happen because heat dissipation will be a big problem, but this is likely in response to the proliferation of data centers. I would rather have data centers in space than convert countryside to concrete and metal jungles.

Once they send the cooling water up into orbit, it's gone for good

"HN pretends that companies have morals: Part 48,037,986"

orbital data center == scam company. if you don't understand physics or economics why should i trust you in simpler things. if you do understand are are lying why should i trust you. anthropic and their holier than though SV brand is cooked.